This invention relates generally to the field of appliance systems and in particular to a system having a plurality of appliances each connected to an alternating current power supply for energization and control of the appliances. Appliance control is effected by way of power line transmission of control information between a master control unit and the controlled appliance via the household wiring.
It is generally well known to use superimposed signals on AC power lines for communication between two or more locations along the power lines. Wu in U.S. Pat. No. 4,163,218 issued on July 31, 1979 and Feiker in U.S. Pat. No. 4,173,754 issued on Nov. 6, 1979 both teach the use of power line communication to control the on-off operation of outlets, lights and appliances through a slave unit associated with the outlets. In each of these patents, the appliance has its own set of controls which may be utilized to operate it independently of the master control unit.
Schwarzbach et al in U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,333 issued on Nov. 29, 1983 teach an appliance control system having a master control unit and a plurality of slave units each including a user programmable microprocessor. Again, the slave units are not part of the appliance that they are used with. Each appliance has its own individual controls and the central control unit merely provides a way to override the controls of the lamp, coffee maker or whatever.
McConnell in U.S. Pat. No. 3,334,340 teaches a remote signal device which receives a signal over the household wiring representative of an appliance condition such as the end of a cycle. The signal receiver is portable and can be moved from room to room but has no capacity for sending a control signal.
Kesling in U.S. Pat. No. 3,983,553 discloses the location of an appliance touch panel away from the appliance itself. Switching information is transmitted over the household wiring to the appliance control box located within the appliance. While the touch panel does include switch members, there is no disclosure indicating that the remotely controlled touch panel contains any of the appliance logic or sequence controls. Further, there is no teaching of the communication of operational information between a master control unit and the appliance control box or of the communication of appliance status operational information to the master control unit.
In the appliance system of the instant invention, a master controller includes the user-operable controls and associated logic controls for controlling operating components of an appliance or appliances. These controls have been physically separated from housings containing the operating components such as heaters, motors and dispensers which actually perform the work function of the particular appliance. In this appliance system, an interface control unit is physically associated with each controlled appliance and receives control signals for the various operating components from the master controller. The interface control units and the master controller continually interact by each transmitting and receiving information relative to the operation of the particular appliance. Thus, the appliances including the interface control units and the master controller are interdependent so that the master controller is not universal as are prior art controls but is dedicated to controlling the operation of particular appliances. In this appliance system, the master controller has no function without the appliances and their associated interface control units and the appliances and interface control units cannot operate without the master controller. There has thus been created a unique appliance system separating appliance user operable controls and logic controls for operating components from the appliances and placing them in a master controller so that all appliances in a particular household area can be operated from one master controller.